Eric Van Allen

Former game jam prototype Nuts is getting a full launch later this month. It still has all the squirrel-observing action of the original, but looks to expand it out with a campsite and eerie conspiracies. Also, dynamite? Nuts!

A Hand With Many Fingers Captures The Paranoia Of Cold War Conspiracies

Most mystery stories involve flashy detective work and sharp deductions, culminating in a dramatic reveal. In the novel Murder on the Orient Express, there’s a point where detective Hercule Poirot gathers everyone together and dives into a detailed breakdown of exactly how a murder occurred, and how deep its roots ran through every car on…

This Bot Turns Reddit Arguments Into Ace Attorney Debates

Ever since there’s been more than one person on the internet, there have been arguments. Some forum debates have become so outrageous that they’ve been forever ensconced in the collective unconscious of the web. And now, they can be turned into Phoenix Wright debates. A new bot created by Micah Price can grab the text…

Auto Chess Is Getting a MOBA, Continuing the Eternal Cycle

The history of the MOBA genre is one of mods and iteration. Its most popular and still-standing games today are the result of multiple reimaginings and tweaks to skirt copyright issues. Now, there’s one more absurd step to the story: the makers of Auto Chess are making a MOBA. An Auto Chess MOBA is a…

Massive Fallout: New Vegas Mod The Frontier Is Finally Out

A mod years in the making launched just last Friday, and it was a launch so big it took Nexus Mods with it. Fallout: The Frontier is essentially a new game, built onto Fallout: New Vegas The Frontier has been kicking around for several years, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a fair bit…

Anamanaguchi’s Scott Pilgrim Soundtrack Is Still Pop-Rock Pixel Perfection

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, after years of being stranded on old consoles, was finally re-released last week. I’m eager to hop back in, but more than just playing through it one more time, I’ve been digging re-listening to the game’s perfect pop-rock soundtrack. The tunes for Scott Pilgrim were made by pop-rock…

One Man’s Quest To Eradicate Every Goku In Dragon Ball FighterZ

Dragon Ball FighterZ has a lot of characters, and several of them are Goku. Some players see that as a problem, and one streamer in particular has taken it upon himself to eradicate those Gokus, one piledriver at a time. This piece was first published on February 23, 2018. Lee “Lythero” Geary is a fighting…

Darling In The Franxx Doesn’t Make Good On Its Promises

Darling in the Franxx is a show about children fighting monsters in giant robots, but through its 24 episodes, it undergoes a metamorphosis from teen melodrama with mecha to a galactic-scale conflict. This transition isn’t very smooth, however, and by the finale, Darling feels like a beautifully animated series that never quite sticks the landing.…

How Many Gokus Are In Dragon Ball FighterZ, Exactly?

There is only one Son Goku in Dragon Ball, yet throughout the series’ history, he has embodied many different forms. Video games have attempted to keep up with the canon by including different versions of Goku, each with varying levels of “Goku-ness.” Hence the debate: how many Gokus are there, really? Chris Person, Heather Alexandra,…

Big Data Is The Future Of Esports

“Game developers don’t like me,” said Sabina Hemmi. “Before I came around, there was no insight into how balanced a game was.” Hemmi is joking. Partially. As the co-founder of DotaBuff, a site that provides statistics about Dota 2 gameplay, she can show with hard data if certain characters are stronger or weaker, and in…

The Punch-Out-inspired boxing duck game Pato Box is coming to the Nintendo Switch eShop on July 9. It was already a pretty fun mix of puzzle solving and boxing on Steam, and now it will have Joy-Con motion controls to boot.

Splatoon 2‘s Octo Expansion Is Wrecking Me And I Love It

Splatoon’s campaigns have always been wacky, inventive, but rarely too difficult. They seemed designed to introduce players to the game’s different weapons and mechanics. The newly released Octo Expansion for Splatoon 2 isn’t about warm welcomes. It’s about mastering all that Splatoon can throw at you and then some. The setup of the Octo Expansion…

LonelyStreams Shows You What Happens In Twitch Streams With Zero Viewers

Many stories about Twitch revolve around celebrities, the influencers and tastemakers who have “made it” to a career of all-day gameplay streaming. But Twitch isn’t just star gamers; it’s pirate streams, bizarre Tim and Eric-style broadcasts, and average Joes just streaming their Overwatch matches. Many do so without anyone watching. LonelyStreams is the best tool…

League of Legends Has Flipped Its Metagame On Its Head

For a long time, League of Legends has had a consistent metagame. But the competitive environment and the individual and team strategies that result have recently changed at a rapid pace, leading to earlier fights, faster games, and a wild shift in the way players try to out-pick and out-play each other. League is one…

Sudden Dota 2 Update Wreaks Havoc On Qualifier Tournament

The North American open qualifiers for the 2018 Dota 2 International were off to the races yesterday, with dozens of games being played to determine who would take a regional spot. And then along came a patch containing Dota 2‘s new battle royale mode, and everything fell apart. A Dota 2 patch pushed yesterday included…

Samurai Game Ghost of Tsushima Is Gorgeous

Sony showed the first gameplay of the upcoming samurai action game Ghost of Tsushima at their E3 2018 press conference this evening. It was a beautiful ballet of swords and arrows. First announced at last year’s Paris Games Week, Ghost of Tsushima is the next game from Infamous studio Sucker Punch Productions, and it’s looking…

Base-building vault management sim Fallout Shelter is coming to PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch tonight. It will still be free, and the Switch version will have both touchscreen and Joy-Con controls, so get to making some more of those horror vaults

Tales of Vesperia is getting a definitive edition this coming winter. A spectacular role-playing game (and my personal favorite Tales) will be coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch with content “never before seen in the west.”

Devil May Cry 5 Is Coming Next Year

Capcom unveiled the new Devil May Cry during Microsoft’s E3 press conference today and it looks rad as hell, y’all. The game will be a “true” sequel to 2008’s Devil May Cry 4. A short-haired Nero returns as protagonist and seems to have lost his arm, the source of much of his power, in a previous…

Bethesda Teases Fallout 76 Yet Again

Todd Howard took the stage to give us another tease of the upcoming Fallout 76 during Microsoft’s E3 press conference today. It didn’t answer many questions, but it did look pretty. Set in the hills of West Virginia, the video shows several vault dwellers walking around the barren wasteland. The narrative seems focused on the…